


Alone At Last

by Sketchyfletch



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/F, I take a spanner to the canon and beat it into the shape I want, Spoilers for the new year's special, The TARDIS ships it, Yaz has either a praise kink or a voice kink not sure which
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28710072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sketchyfletch/pseuds/Sketchyfletch
Summary: After a departure, Yaz is feeling unsettled. The Doctor is attempting to gloss it over. They have a conversation that's been a long time coming. Mild sauciness ensues.
Relationships: Thasmin - Relationship, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 9
Kudos: 67





	Alone At Last

**Author's Note:**

> Thirteen and Yaz should have hugged, dammit. I may do a second chapter on what happens next (which will definitely have a higher rating), but for now take this attempt on a conversation they definitely should have had!

They'd had a few moments of silence as the door shut behind Ryan and Graham. The Doctor didn't speak, or drum her fingertips on the console, or even move. The engines didn't hum. It was the quietest Yaz had ever known it to be on the TARDIS. 

This one, anyway. The other one had been silent for ten long, agonising months, apart from her shuffling through her notes, or Ryan and Graham coming by to try and tempt her out. She'd have given anything for the sound of the Doctor whistling, or her boots tapping against the floor, or chatting away with her usual machine-gun velocity about planets and empires and momentous points in history. 

When the Doctor spoke now, it felt jarring. As jarring as it had when she had reappeared, popping out of the TARDIS with that big stupid grin on her face and announcing she'd been in space jail like she'd never been away. Yaz had pictured a different reunion, one involving tears and hugging. Instead she'd shoved her. That had felt wrong, too.

"Okay! Meringue planet, how about it, eh? Reckon we could both use a treat, Daleks are pretty full on, hard enough when there's five of them let alone hundreds."

The Doctor was already off, sprinting around the console, tugging at various levers. The TARDIS started up, fading into the vortex. "Doctor…"

"Or if that doesn't take your fancy, how about the court of Emperor Mujahee Sabin? Threw the most elaborate feasts in the galaxy, and his palaces were made of crystal-"

"Doctor-" Yaz got the distinct impression that the Doctor was trying not to hear her. That was even more infuriating. 

"-of course we'll have to be careful, I threatened his Vizier the last time we were there for trying to mount a coup, he'd be lookin' for ways to give us the boot-"

"Doctor!" 

Finally the Doctor looked up, the grin slightly frozen on her face. It was immediately obvious she'd been trying her usual tactic of chattering her way through an awkward situation. Yaz sat down on the step, pressing her fingertips against her forehead. “Can we just...take a moment?” 

There was a pause, and then the Doctor used exactly the same sort of strained cheery voice she used when she was under pressure. “Of course! Sure. Always got time for my Yaz.” 

My Yaz. It should have felt good to hear her say that, but under the circumstances it instead seemed a bit false. Yaz heard boots clattering over the metal floor, and then a rush of warmth at her side as the Doctor settled beside her. Her shoulder was pressed against Yaz’s. Familiar, comforting. Somehow now infuriating. 

“So...what’s up? You were really excited a few minutes ago. Before...”

Yaz couldn’t look at her. “Is this always how it is? When someone leaves? You just have a moment, then it’s straight back into it, charging around the universe, saving galaxies? Do you ever look back?”

The Doctor shifted away from her slightly. Possibly she was looking at her. “Yeah. It’s like that. And I never stop looking back. But I’ve also got to go on, you know. Like you were meant to.”

Wait, this conversation wasn’t meant to be about Yaz. She finally looked up, meeting the Doctor’s eyes, confused. “What?” 

“I saw the notes in the other TARDIS, Yaz.” Oh. She’d sort of hoped, with the chaos of a world-wide Dalek invasion taking up everybody’s brainspace, that the Doctor might not have had the chance to notice that. Sometimes she seemed to be oblivious on purpose, to try and spare people’s feelings. Apparently not this time. “Ten months worth of ‘em. Good work, I’ll admit. If you’d been an enemy, I’d have been right concerned.” Warm fingers slipped around Yaz’s, as the Doctor took her hand gently. “Instead I got worried. I thought...even if I never got out of Space Jail...you’d all get to go on and live your lives. I didn’t want the hermit life for you.” 

“Does anybody just get to ‘live their lives’ after you, Doctor?” She was being too snappish, a little too sharp, but she couldn’t help it. For a moment she’d let herself be excited by the idea of getting back on board, jetting around the galaxy, the pain of the last ten months absolved - only to discover that it would never quite be the same. Ryan and Graham both gone. It had punctured her as effectively as a pin with a balloon. It had also reminded her of a throwaway comment Jack had made. “What happened to Rose? Who was she, even?”

The Doctor stood up sharply and walked over to the console. “That’s a painful one, Yaz. I’d rather not talk about it.” 

The moment was slipping away, and Yaz couldn’t find the words, that stupid-ass grin was back on the Doctor’s face as easily as slipping on a mask and she was pressing buttons and pulling levers again, about to leave the world and this conversation behind - 

Everything went dark. 

For a few moments, Yaz couldn’t hear anything but breathing, and then the Doctor muttering under her breath. “No - no, can’t be that, come on darling, work with me here - what are you up to? Ah! This should help - ow!” There’d been a spark and Yaz caught a quick glimpse of the Doctor shaking out their hand, before it went black again. Only this time, there was a slight muted yellow glow coming from somewhere; just enough that the Doctor’s silhouette was visible, nothing more. It was so quiet. The engine wasn’t even running. 

They were drifting in the vortex, and the TARDIS was utterly unresponsive. 

“What’s happenin’, Doctor?” 

The Doctor ignored her for a few moments, jabbing at the console and muttering under her breath, before taking a step back. “Oh, you cheeky beggar. Is that really what you’re after?” 

Footsteps again, drawing closer. The Doctor didn’t sit so close by this time. 

“So. I think the TARDIS is on strike until we talk.” 

“It can do that?” 

“Mmhm. Temperamental thing, she is. Likes to make sure I know my place, even if she-” there was a clang, as though the Doctor had whacked one of the metal bannisters - “doesn’t always take me to the right one. Like actually two days after I left, rather than ten months.” A pause. “Yaz? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I genuinely didn’t know. Thought I’d pop out, right as rain, and you guys’d be so happy to see me.”

Yaz felt suddenly guilty. The Doctor had probably been expecting relief, or delight. And instead, Yaz had shoved her. She’d just found it so aggravating, after months apart, that the Doctor had expected everything to be back to normal, but knowing she hadn’t intended to turn up so late helped. A bit. She was still worried about whatever had happened to Rose - and other previous companions. Gnawing at her more fervently though was a question she hadn’t actually got around to asking yet.

“So - how long were you in Space Jail?”

The Doctor laughed. It didn’t sound like a real laugh. “About two decades, give or take. Kind of borin’, I have to admit.”

“Two decades-” Yaz couldn’t damp down the horror in her voice. “You were in jail for twenty years?!” Ice sloshed through her gut. Here she’d been winding herself up over ten months and the Doctor had been in prison that entire time - even longer than that entire time.

The Doctor was still talking. “Well, two decades makes it sound less dramatic than twenty years, but-”

She was cut off as Yaz pulled her into her arms. No more thoughts for her own wounded feelings now. She held the Doctor, rocking her slightly, as her own breath came a little short. Yaz realised she might actually be about to start crying. “I’m sorry - I’m sorry - we had a TARDIS, if I’d just tried a bit harder I could have learned to fly it, we could have done somethin’, I don’t know what but anything-”

“Sssh, Yaz, sssh.” The Doctor had wormed her way slightly upright and now it was Yaz being pulled towards her, resting her face against the Doctor’s shoulder. She was meant to be comforting her, but instead now it was the Doctor who was supporting Yaz, stroking the back of her hair, her shoulder absorbing the tears that Yaz hadn’t even realised had started to flow. She’d missed her so much, and she’d been so angry, and it hadn’t even been the Doctor’s fault. “I’ve got you. I’m back now, see? All fingers and toes, right and proper. And trust me, I saw it in the other TARDIS, you did everythin’ you could. I reckon another couple of months and you could have got that thing off the ground.” She stretched out a hand, see-sawing her fingers. “Breaking into the prison with the tightest security in the universe, though? Might have been a bit longer. Couple of days, I reckon.” 

It was a joke, and Yaz managed to hiccup a laugh. “Like they’d have kept me out.” 

“Well, if anybody could manage it’d be my Yaz.” 

There it was again, the sweetest and most painful two words in the world. Painful because it was no longer our Yaz, the Doctor had adapted to the idea of not having the full fam around so quickly, and Yaz would miss Graham and Ryan so much. And sweet because of the feelings that Yaz had tried to never let build up. The ones that Jack had seen in her within the first five minutes. The ones that could end this even more quickly than her getting angry with the Doctor. 

She looked up. Her face was inches away from the Doctor’s. To her surprise, the Doctor’s eyes were brimming as well, the glimmer of the water just discernible in the gloom that the TARDIS had cast over them. She caught Yaz looking, gave a strange half-laugh, and freed a hand to wipe her face. “Ha. Sorry. It’s just - yes, two decades is a fair while to go without being around other folks. Haven’t had a good hug in a long time. S’nice to be touched without it being a sad goodbye.” 

Yaz wasn’t thinking at all when she cupped the Doctor’s cheek, her thumb wiping away the last traces of the tears that had fallen. “How’s that?” 

The Doctor’s gaze fixed on hers. She was trying to read her, and Yaz wondered what she was seeing. Could she see all of it? Could she see everything Yaz had imagined and dreamed and sometimes let herself hope for, only for the moment to pass unnoted? A few moments passed. “It’s nice. It’s - good.” 

Any moment now the Doctor would bounce up, charge over to the controls and try and persuade the TARDIS to fly again, distracting them from whatever was building between them. Surely this was what the machine had wanted, for them to be honest with each other and apologise. But the lights remained dim and the Doctor didn’t move. She wasn’t dropping her gaze and Yaz couldn’t, held in the spell of those hazel eyes that had seen one end of the universe to another. 

“Yaz.” How long had they been staring at each other? “All things end, you know. And with me, they don’t always end well. I asked you when you first joined me if you were sure if you still wanted to, knowin’ that.” 

“I remember.” Yaz could barely breathe. She was afraid that the wrong word, the wrong gesture, would shatter whatever might be coming. “I didn’t hesitate. It’s always better to take a chance on something than live afraid of being hurt.”

The Doctor gave her a watery grin. “Aye, I’d always agree with you on that. But it’s not about being afraid of being hurt, for me. I’ve been hurt. I’m still hurting. I remember all of them. The ones who left, the ones who got hurt. The ones who I - lost.”

“Rose.”

The Doctor nodded, smile fading. “Her. And others. I just don’t want to hurt anybody else, but I also don’t want to be alone. I’ve been alone. Apart from some pretty interesting people on my daily walk in the prison, but they weren’t all that happy to see me, truth be told. There was this Ood couple, proper Bonnie and Clyde types, hated me but what a story they had-” she cut herself off, mid-sentence, and cleared her throat. “I’m doing it again.” 

“Doing what?” 

“Trying to change the subject. Probably owe you better by now.”

Yaz thought back over the missions before. How at the beginning, the Doctor had been very willing to grab her hand, hug her, drag her all over the place (not that Yaz had been complaining at all). And then it just seemed to fade. The Doctor didn’t touch her as much, sent her off with other people, generally didn’t follow up with her after an adventure. It had stung a bit, but mostly they’d been too busy for her to really sink into a funk about it. “Wait. Were you deliberately avoiding me?”

“Not avoiding! Never. See I thought you might. Well. Like me like me. And nasty stuff tends to happen to people who do, so I guess it was a way of trying to keep you around longer.” She smiled weakly again. “Can’t have a universe without Yaz.” 

Yaz thought she might just die on the spot at ‘like me like me’, given it was one of the understatements of the century - whichever one they might be in right now. Had she been that transparent? But she gathered her courage. “But what if I decided I wanted to take that risk? It was worth it just for charging all over the galaxy, but I’d do all our dangerous missions a hundred times over again as long as I got to do it with you. Even if-” she cleared her throat. “As friends. I wouldn’t push for anything more.” 

For the second time, the Doctor’s eyes were glittering at her in the dark, and Yaz couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to look away. Time stretched out and she was holding her breath, because if she so much as breathed, it would break the silence and the moment would be over. 

Perhaps the Doctor felt the same, because when she spoke, her normally exuberant voice was so quiet that Yaz almost didn’t hear her. “What if I wanted you to push for more?” 

Yaz had suffered many insecurities over the course of her life. From people giving her grief at school over her background, to struggling with pigheaded colleagues on the force, not feeling as interesting or dashing as the multitude of people she’d met since joining the Doctor. But one thing her adventures had taught her was that she wasn’t a coward, and she finally acted on the impulse she’d been stifling for so long. 

She leaned forward, and gently kissed the Doctor. 

It was almost awkward, sitting at an angle to her on the step, the metal ridges digging into the back of her legs, not quite sure what to do with her hands. The fleeting discomfort was immediately banished as after a heart-stopping second, the Doctor leaned in to her, kissing her in return (the Doctor! Was kissing her!), one hand sliding up to cradle Yaz’s face. 

It was amazing, and it was sweet, and it was in no way enough. Yaz slid her arm around the Doctor, pulling the other woman almost onto her lap, bringing her warmth closer. Apparently the Doctor was of the same mind as she shifted around to kneel astride Yaz’s hips, both hands now holding her, and they were kissing more deeply now, the tentative beginning quickly becoming a memory. The Doctor was almost bird-like in her build, but Yaz had seen how tough she was and now she had the proof of it under the palms of her hands, feeling the flex of muscle beneath the Doctor’s thin t-shirt. 

That disconnected the last conscious part of her brain and it was only when the kiss ended so they could both gasp for breath that she regained herself. The Doctor was leaning back and looking at her with the same expression of joyful wonder usually reserved for some amazing new world they’d discovered. Yaz stared back at her, the glinting hazel eyes, the wide grin, the perfect curve her brow arching down to her cheekbone, the sharp jaw. If she’d just met somebody identical on a night out in Sheffield, she’d have been attracted enough already.

But this was the Doctor. She had no defence against her. Not that she wanted to have one.

Then she realised she could actually make out the Doctor’s face. The lights had risen, and the TARDIS engines were humming softly once more. The Doctor noticed at the same time, and was now gazing around the room, a laugh in her voice. “So that’s what you were about. I believe we’ve got a shipper, Yasmin Khan.” 

“Good to know I’m not treading on her toes, like.” Yaz felt like giggling as well. She felt like jumping up and dancing, singing, maybe running a marathon - exhilarated joy was running through her body like a river. It was as though she’d borrowed some of the Doctor’s energy. And hearing the Doctor say her full name did something to her. Something she wasn’t sure if she could articulate right now. 

“Well. Now we could go anywhere. Do anything. Anywhere in the universe you want to go, you say the word.” The Doctor’s gaze locked with hers. “Although if I’m bein’ honest with myself, right now I’m partial to seeing what else we can find out about each other.”

“What else?”

The Doctor stoked her jawline, down the column of her neck, following along to the collarbone. Her eyes never left Yaz’s, and her voice was low, although that grin was still in place. “Well. Your lips are perfect, so I want to know more about them. Your skin is very soft, so I want to find out all about that. And I’ve noticed a reaction I’d quite like to experiment with, in the name of science.” She leaned forward, bring her mouth alongside Yaz’s ear, breath teasing over the skin. “My Yaz.”

Oh, that was incredibly unfair, and Yaz had no chance of hiding her reaction; her breath caught, and remained stuck as the Doctor pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. “Yasmin Kahn. Do you know what I see when I look at you?” Teeth nipped her earlobe, and Yaz clenched her fists in the material of the Doctor’s coat, squirming a little beneath her, unable to focus on anything but her need for the Doctor to never, ever stop using that voice. “A mind as sharp as obsidian and eyes as dark and sparkling as a galaxy. You’re brave as a lion, and your hands-” the Doctor caught one of them, bringing Yaz’s palm to her mouth, kissing it softly - “I’d sometimes look at your hands as you were workin’ away on something, thinking how deft they were. Wonderin’ what else they’d be good at.”

The tip of a tongue brushed her palm and between that and realising that the Doctor had actually been thinking about her in that way before now almost undid Yaz. She had to pull the Doctor back to her for another kiss, this one deeper and longer than the last...and somewhat more frantic. After having the Doctor talk to her like that, there was no way she could just stop. When they pulled apart again, breathless once more, she gulped down air quickly so she could respond, hands sliding up the back of the Doctor’s shirt. “I could - show you. If you liked.” 

The Doctor smiled. Oh, such a smile - as joyous as her usual grin, but with a distinctly feral edge to it that set Yaz’s heart flinging itself against her ribs. “Oh, Yasmin Kahn. I want you to show me everything you’ve got.”


End file.
